Response to Hovagimyan's On ***** Media

            In his essay, “On Media,” Hovagimyan posits the idea that society is entering an era of what he calls ‘post-media.’ This essentially means that the traditional ways of thinking about and interacting with media are transforming into something entirely different than what they have been. In the modern world, this process is spurred on and greatly influenced by technology. Because artwork and discourse on artwork are so easily distributed with computer technology, it has the potential to reach more people than ever before. But because of the way in which it is distributed, art is becoming less and less stationary and more variable. It is very easy for other artists to download work that they find on the internet and then manipulate that work to become their own, to make a different statement or social commentary, or simply because they were inspired by the original work and want to show the world their take on it.

            Hovagimyan examines the historical transitions between different types of media as a sort of precursor of what he believes is in the process of happening now. As more and more advanced forms of media become invented, the older ones dramatically change in their presentation and function. The major example he gives of this is the nature of paintings before and after the advent of photography. While paintings traditionally were used to depict reality – battle scenes, aristocratic families, the streets of Paris in the mid 1800s – after photography was invented, it was forced to give this up. Painting had no way of fully capturing the detail and authenticity of the world that photography so effortlessly achieved. Because of this, it became a much more abstract form of art, released from the need to represent reality. We are now in a similar state of flux – the older forms of media cannot keep up with the rushing pace of the information age. Even film, the most “real” of the mediums, must adapt to keep up with what internet culture requires.

            The film I found on UbuWeb this week is a perfect example of the point I made in the first paragraph. It is focused on a famous English graffiti artist, Banksy. In the video, it focuses on a large-scale project he did regarding Paris Hilton and her utter ridiculousness. He took her debut album and switched out the CDs in store with those that he had made with remixes of her songs that commented on the purpose (or lack thereof) of her fame and her life in general. He took her art and manipulated it to make it his own and to make a point about her role in pop culture.

http://www.ubu.com/film/banksy.html